Chapter 38

There was a small part of me that thought I was back on that thin mattress in the basement hallucinating from hunger. That Di never hired my mates to break me out of here and I’d just been hearing voices in my head while slowing dying of hunger in that awful place.

When Benji’s smoke cleared, we were standing in a charming, cozy living room. It very much looked like men lived here, but men who had good taste, liked things low key and comfortable, and were clean.

Cas refused to put me down, and I was actually grateful for that because even though Hannibal ordered me fed again, the portions weren’t enough and the food wasn’t really nutritious enough to do much for the starvation they put me through.

“I need someone to pinch me so I know this is real,” I said.

“I’d pinch that beautiful butt, but I just found out your name, so that might be a little forward,” Benji said, wagging his eyebrows at me.

“If she’s too weak to hit you, I will,” the vampire said.

“If you’re going to be mated to Jezebel and just ignore her like that, you’d better at least tell me your name if you’re going to threaten my mate,” I growled.

“Relax. Benji and I bonded while we were plotting to overthrow the monarchy. He’s like my younger, hybrid brother. I’d never actually hit him. I’m an original vampire so I’m older than you. I’ve been everything from Chieftess to Queen. There have been countless people who have hired shadow demons to get rid of me and none of them succeeded.

“That said, I really don’t want to fuck with your boy’s shadow wolf or you without those glasses. I didn’t live this long and finally meet my mates to start shit with two people who could actually kill me. I’m glad you were there for Jezebel during her imprisonment. I had to turn off the mate bond so I could think straight to get all of you out. I’m Kat, by the way.”

I finally got to see what Jezebel and Calamity looked like. Jezebel looked exactly how I imagined it would look like when one creature who was meant to be alluring in both appearance and voice had a child with another creature who fed off sex. She was haggard and like me, she had been living in a place where we had a shower in our cell, but they weren’t giving us soap or shampoo. She was gorgeous. Jezebel had long, red hair and looked like a model.

Calamity was fucking adorable. A lot of humans thought imps were these small, ugly creatures, but they were basically the demon equivalent of pixies. Cute little things that thrived on mayhem. She was a tiny thing with strawberry-blonde hair and a spattering of freckles.

“Jezebel, I love you and we’re all going to get that drink, but I’d really like to wash with soap and shampoo. Two of my mates are shifters and I think the mate bond is preventing them from dumping me in a bathtub and telling me I stink.”

“I like your stink,” Cas grunted.

“You really don’t, big guy. I feel gross.”

Cas snapped into action.

“Benji, take Kat and her mates to the guest cottage and come back. Pax, draw her a bath. While she’s soaking, get her something green witch appropriate to eat from the garden and keep checking on her since she’s weak. Benji, when you get back, we need to get supplies for her. Everything in our village is closed since it’s late, so we’ll have to make an exception and hit up the twenty-four-hour Super Mart in the next town over for things and get the rest when our people open.”

Benji pulled a face.

“Super Mart is morally reprehensible. It’s a gross display of unchecked capitalism that if you want to pick between twenty different generics of Dr Pepper at three in the morning, they’ve got people working and barely paying them.”

Kat swatted at the back of his head.

“You’re going to have to get real cool about a lot of shit now that you have a woman living here. She doesn’t just need clothes and food. There’s going to be tampons and pads all up in your man space now.”

She looked at Benji like she expected him to go off on periods being morally reprehensible since he thought that about a lot of things.

“And? Periods are natural. Not only do we not care about tampons and if she gets bad periods, we’ll spoil the shit out of her.”

“Good answer. Now, suck it up and deal with the fluorescent lighting and sadness at the Super Mart and take care of her now. Take us to the cabin and I’ll go with you because I need to get things for us, too.”

Benji disappeared to lead their guests to the cottage and Cas set me gingerly down on this really comfy couch. He knelt in front of me and grabbed my hands.

“Benji called dibs on killing Hannibal. We let him have it because he needs closure and aside from you and angel tears, there’s not much that can stop Benji. Kat was supposed to disable him until we could get you out of the basement, but no one knew about the tunnels and secret passages. Kat tried to follow, but they are booby-trapped. She found his phone and we can find him. Di says you’re the key to stopping the Coalition for good, but if you need time to just heal, everyone is just going to have to deal with that.”

It was sweet, but he didn’t know Di. Clearly, since Di didn’t give Cas his full name. Di and my friends would never let anything bad happen to me because they all met me after a lot of bad things did happen to me.

Cas wouldn’t be alone in fighting for me to recover if Di knew something I didn’t about me being able to stop the Coalition.